


Bad Memories

by vials



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Silva gets like hella tortured in this because I'm cruel, Silva's henchmen being total bros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-08
Updated: 2016-09-08
Packaged: 2018-08-13 20:14:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7984729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vials/pseuds/vials
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When one of Silva's long-standing contacts decides to betray him, he finds himself in a highly volatile situation. He's always been good at thinking on his feet, but unfortunately for him, his ex-contact smells a rat and tries to get the truth out of him the old-fashioned way. The only chance Silva has of making it out alive are his men, who have at least inherited their boss's ability to see every option.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bad Memories

“I don’t know why you’re looking around yourself so eagerly, Raoul. You must know by now that there’s no way out of this.”

Silva turned his attention back to the man standing in front of him, giving him an amused smile.

“I don’t recall implying I thought otherwise,” he said, his tone slightly too polite. He saw the tone register with Pichushkin in the form of a slight twitch of his eyebrow. Silva let himself take some pleasure from it, however small the victory. He was going to need every one he could find.

“You seem… oddly confident,” Pichushkin eventually said. His hands were clasped neatly behind his back, and Silva wished he could see what he might be holding. “I do hope you honoured your part of the agreement, and that I don’t have to worry about any extra surprises.”

“Oh?” Silva asked, raising an eyebrow. “Like you honoured your part of the agreement, hmm? Because with all due respect, I don’t recall any part of the agreement that stated you could incapacitate my men and disarm me, and then wander around playing your little games. Would it be fair to say that you seem to think that you can break the rules, but I can’t?”

Pichushkin was unsure; Silva could see it in the way he held himself. If he kept on in this direction, he might be able to persuade Pichushkin that this was more trouble than it was worth. It wasn’t likely, considering that he admittedly had the upper hand – the rest of Silva’s team was testimony to that, on their knees behind him with their hands tied behind their backs. Unlikely though it was, it was Silva’s only shot. He could feel an ache beginning to spread through his shoulders and discretely, he tried to relax them. God, he loathed standoff situations. If everyone just stuck to their agreement, he would save a lot of wasted time.

“So what do you have, Silva?” Pichushkin asked, and Silva noted the deliberate dropping of his first name. “Reinforcements? Or maybe you’ve wired the whole place to explode. That seems to be your thing, doesn’t it?”

“I guess we won’t know until it’s too late,” Silva said calmly, and Pichushkin laughed. 

“Do you take me for an idiot?” he asked.

“Naturally,” Silva said.

For a moment, it looked as though Pichushkin would lose his temper. He managed to resist, instead giving Silva an incredibly strained smile and a laugh that didn’t quite sound natural.

“I would love to know why,” he said, and Silva glanced around the warehouse again, at the guarded exits, at the windows at the very top of the impossibly high walls. He looked back to Pichushkin.

“I’ll tell you why,” he said. “You seem to think it would be a smart idea to go back on a deal that we have had in place for several years now. There has never been a problem. You seem to think that I would not find this suspicious. Why would you suddenly betray me, when we have had a mutually beneficial partnership? You forget what I can do, Mr Pichushkin. I can guarantee you that every piece of correspondence you’ve had over the recent months has been seen by me. I keep a close eye on my enemies, but an even closer one on my friends.”

Pichushkin stared at him, searching his face for any clue that he was bluffing. Silva kept his face mostly blank, allowing only the faintest hint of annoyance to reside there, maybe even the slightest touch of disappointment.

“Of course, you would find someone who could give you a better deal,” Silva continued, shaking his head. “Someone who conveniently dislikes me, no? How perfect. What a wonderful coincidence. You sell me out, you live happily ever after. _Idiota_. You have made a very nasty mistake, my friend.”

Pichushkin’s smile was shakier now.

“A bold claim to make with no evidence,” he said, and Silva raised his eyebrows again.

“No evidence?” he asked. “Good lord, you didn’t think your systems were that secure, did you? Maybe to an attacker of average capability, but child’s play for me. Honestly. I don’t know why you bother wasting my time like this.”

“So answer me one thing, Mr Silva,” Pichushkin said, taking a few steps closer. Silva studied his body language, trying to work out what the man held behind his back – he was positive he was holding something now. “If you were so sure that I would betray you, why did you come? Why did you allow yourself to be compromised?”

“To get even, of course,” Silva answered patiently. “Think about it, hmm? You haven’t killed us, or attempted to take anything from us past disarming us, which is an understandable course of action given the circumstances. You have even taken the time to tie my men up, rather than just disposing of them. Surely if this was a personal issue, you would get rid of them and simply deal with me? But you have kept all of us alive. I think this is because you are planning to hand us over to someone. You were alone when we arrived, and you are alone now, meaning that those someones are yet to arrive. Now, how do you think they are going to reach you, if I am already wise to this plan?”

He saw the brief flicker of anger on Pichushkin’s face, followed by concern, and then it had vanished as quickly as it had come. Pichushkin smiled instead, another one of those odd, unnatural things, and took another step closer to Silva, close enough that he could reach out and touch him. Silva held his ground.

“I suppose that means we’re alone, then?” he asked pleasantly. 

“For now,” Silva said.

“Then it’s only fair that we make the most of it.”

Silva saw what Pichushkin had been holding in his hand at the last moment; the small, tell-tale yellow rectangle of a taser. He registered a brief moment of blind panic before the pain hit him, overwhelming and terrible and far too familiar, and then he hit the cold concrete floor, the shock of the impact barely registering through the pain of the electricity surging through him. He managed not to scream, clenching his jaw instinctive to him now, but he was unable to stop himself from curling up in agony, his limbs twitching even after the current was no longer being applied.

The buzzing echoed in his head for several seconds after it stopped, and when it finally did, leaving Silva twitching on the ground, he could hear Pichushkin laughing. It took everything in Silva’s power to prevent himself from jumping up and snapping the man’s neck; as tempting as it was, and as possible as it was, it would be far too inconvenient right now. Silva would like to walk out with some of his men and preferably a few of his weapons, but despite this knowledge, the helplessness was still an unwelcome sensation.

“Not going to get back up?” Pichushkin asked. “Or is that it? Are you already done?”

“I don’t see the point in getting back up when I’m sure you’re just _dying_ to use that on me again,” Silva said, his voice deliberately even. It wasn’t entirely a lie – he had no doubt that Pichushkin just wanted to send him crashing to the floor again – but there was also the small matter of the fact that his limbs were still twitching uncontrollably, and so Silva thought that trying anything at this point would be useless.

“You know, you can kill people will these,” Pichushkin said thoughtfully, holding the device in front of him.

“I don’t doubt it,” Silva said, his skin still burning where the taser had made contact with him.

“I wonder how long it would take for you to die?” 

Silva closed his eyes for a brief moment, wishing for strength. He hated it when they tiptoed around, talking about torture and death and how long it would take and what they would do. It was all so boring. He was glad that he was a man of actions rather than words.

“Why don’t you stop talking and find out?” he asked, and the beat of silence was satisfying. 

“Do you think that this is a bluff, Mr Silva?” Pichushkin eventually asked. His voice had dropped several octaves in the way that voices tended to do when someone was finally done with niceties, and Silva was glad for it. He couldn’t stand time-wasting. 

“No,” Silva answered, looking up at him but knowing better than to try and sit. “I was simply wondering if you were ever going to get around to it. You are aware that we’re on a strict time schedule, I presume? I believe I told you that your little stunt had been compromised, and you would like to sit around and taunt me? It isn’t very time efficient.”

“You seem very eager to die,” Pichushkin said, and Silva let out a harsh bark of laughter.

“Please,” he said. “If you think I’m afraid to die, you are going to find yourself very disappointed. What will you do to me, hmm? Tase me again? Beat me around? Maybe you’ll have your men rape me, if you feel like really making a point. I can guarantee you that nothing you do will be original, and that there is absolutely nothing that can be done to me in half an hour that will remotely compare to what has been done to me in the past. So by all means, enjoy yourself. I suppose one of us should get something out of it.”

Pichushkin didn’t miss the shifting movement behind Silva. He raised an eyebrow as he glanced at it, before looking back at Silva, who was still staring up at him.

“Your men seem slightly uncomfortable,” he said. “Tell me, is this because they know of all these terrible things? Or is this because they know you’re lying, and they simply aren’t as good at it as you are?”

Satisfied he was suitably distracted by the discussion, Silva pushed himself up into a sitting position, sitting quite calmly, cross-legged on the ground. He looked over his shoulder at his men, seeing that all but one of them looked distinctly nervous. Only Davis started back at him, his gaze even, as though he knew what was coming and was desperately trying to tell Silva to be careful. Silva gave him a small smile, and turned back to Pichushkin.

“I don’t blame them for being uncomfortable,” he said. “It’s an uncomfortable subject, is it not? They have heard things before, but I don’t think that is what’s bothering them.”

“Oh? And what is?”

“I’m sure you know how it is,” Silva said, shrugging a shoulder. He could still feel his fingers twitching. “These experiences… they shake things loose in your head, don’t they? They make you a little bit strange. I suppose experience has taught them to be wary when I speak about it. You never know what kind of mood I’ll end up in, and I’ll be the first to admit that none of them are very pleasant.”

Pichushkin looked at him for a moment and then smiled, shaking his head. “You’re a character, aren’t you, Mr Silva?”

“I suppose that depends entirely on what you mean.”

“All of these grand ways of saying that you’re fucked up. That’s what it comes down to, isn’t it? Someone fucked you up. What did they do to you? Is it what you suggested? Is that why you’re like this? Someone pinned you down and gave you a good fucking when you didn’t want it? You know, it doesn’t surprise me. You do have a mouth on you.”

Silva kept the smile fixed on his face, though it took some effort to stop it from turning into a snarl. He could feel the growing discomfort from behind him – sometimes, he thought his men knew his reactions better than he knew them himself. It was enough to send a flicker of frustration through him and he swallowed it down. It wouldn’t do well to get distracted now. 

Pichushkin laughed again, stepping away from Silva and looking past him. Silva didn’t give him the satisfaction of following his gaze, instead squaring his shoulders and staring steadily forward. He didn’t react to the look Pichushkin gave him, the smile on his face that was undeniably twisted with cruelty. He didn’t react when he heard footsteps behind him, or when a heavy boot kicked him square in the back and knocked him to the ground. Silva took a deep breath, steadying himself for whatever might come next; even with the preparation, it didn’t stop the jolt of sheer panic from surging through him when he felt them tug his hands behind his back and roughly tie his wrists together with something rough and coarse. 

“Something troubling you?” Pichushkin asked, raising an eyebrow as Silva was pulled upright again, onto his knees. “You seem a little tense.”

Silva knew he was right; he could feel how his shoulders hunched slightly, his breaths not quite getting him enough air. It was difficult to think when all he could focus on was the growing numbness already present in his fingers; how no matter how many times he twisted his hands around, the rope remained tight. 

“I can’t say all my associations with rope have been enjoyable,” Silva said, only the faintest tremor to his voice. Even so, he knew Pichushkin had heard it. 

“Unfortunately it seems that this will be another one,” he said. “If you survive, that is.”

Silva still couldn’t think. He wasn’t paranoid enough to assume that Pichushkin had known this was one of the things that got to him the most, but he did think he should have been better prepared. It had been too good to be true, really – the fact that his men had been restrained, but not him. He had been a fool to assume it would last.

Speaking of his men, Silva heard a distinct scuffle from behind him, and then a harsh slap of skin meeting skin and someone cursed in pain. Silva wasn’t in the least bit surprised to hear it was Davis.

“What is going on over there?” Pichushkin snapped, though wisely, he didn’t take his eyes from Silva.

“Tell this pervert to keep his foot off my arse,” Davis said, and somewhere, Silva felt a flicker of amusement.

“I didn’t fucking touch you,” the other man said, sounding disgusted at the mere suggestion. “You really want to start telling lies now?”

“Bring him over here,” Pichushkin said, sounding slightly bored.

Several scuffles and curses later, and Davis was dropped down beside Silva, the two of them exchanging a glance. Silva thought Davis’s might have even been concerned. If he was, he didn’t make any mention of it, instead turning to glare up at Pichushkin, licking away the blood on his lip.

“Say he did touch you,” Pichushkin said, faux-curious. “Would you really risk dying to protect your honour?”

“It’s not that he touched my arse, it’s that he scared the shit out of me,” Davis said. “You should tell them to keep their feet to themselves, especially when you’re up here trying to deliver a dramatic speech. Christ, isn’t it a bit distracting?”

Pichushkin raised an eyebrow and looked at Silva. “Do you not teach your men to stay quiet when it counts?”

“They’re free to act with their own agency,” Silva said. “Within reason,” he added, giving Davis a long side-glance. Davis looked back at him with a slightly defiant look, as if asking him what he could do about the situation now. Silva wasn’t entirely sure what Davis was up to, but he would have appreciated being let in on the plan.

Pichushkin looked back to Davis. “You like your boss?”

“He’s alright,” Davis said, shrugging, and Silva snorted.

Pichushkin was silent for a moment, looking between the two of them, something on his face that looked like a mix of suspicion and annoyance. Finally, he tutted to himself, and in one swift movement he jabbed the taser right against Silva’s neck. The burst of pain was brief but instantaneous, knocking Silva back to the floor, his head buzzing with what felt like physical sparks. Briefly, Silva couldn’t catch hold of any of his thoughts; they had all been shaken loose by the electricity, jumbled and incoherent and the only thing that he could seem to focus on was the feel of the cold concrete against his face. 

When his thoughts finally cleared, he became aware of a particularly unpleasant pain in the side of his chest, both a stab and an ache at the same time. Somebody was speaking quickly and loudly, most of the words making no sense to him, and as Silva let out a groan he finally realised it was Pichushkin. It seemed the man had finally lost it.

“I really don’t have _time_ for this,” he said, and Silva quickly worked out what had caused the pain in his side – Pichushkin’s boot, which he drove heavily into Silva’s side again as he spoke. Silva rolled with the pain, not making a sound. “Listen to me, all of you – I’m not going to pretend like I know _everything_ that is going on here –” Another kick. “—but I _will_ say that I know it’s something. I’m going to strike a deal with you guys. You tell me what the fuck is going on here, and maybe I won’t kill your boss. Sound fair?”

Davis snorted. “You really think that’ll work?”

“I think I have a compelling argument,” Pichushkin snapped. “Unless you’re all completely alright with watching him die.”

“Do you think he hires snitches?” Gordon put in, from where he was still kneeling with the others. Davis glanced back at him and then turned back to Pichushkin, raising an eyebrow.

“He’s got a point,” he said. “It wouldn’t be good business practise to hire snitches.”

“Interesting,” Pichushkin said, dropping the taser into his pocket. “I suppose it would be inconvenient, to have men who would talk… but wouldn’t it be even more inconvenient to have men who would let you die?”

Silva let out a harsh bark of laughter. “You think you’re going to _kill_ me? Please.”

“You think you’re in a position to have any control over what I do?” Pichushkin snapped.

Silva laughed again, twisting his body and forcing himself into a sitting position, his shoulders hunched, his legs bent at the knee beside him. He shook some loose hair out of his face and stared up at Pichushkin, who took a slight, subconscious step back. Silva let his eyes dart from Pichushkin to Davis, seeing the unnerved look that vanished from Davis’s face when he saw he was looking.

“Why don’t you just do it?” Silva practically spat. There was something else now, something that wasn’t the leftover effects of the taser making him shake, making him feel like he didn’t quite fit inside his own head. He clenched his fists where they were tied behind him and stared straight at Pichushkin, as if daring him to argue. “You’ve been talking about it since this started and I’m bored, Alexei. I’m _bored_. Either kill me or don’t, but for heaven’s sake, stop wasting my time.”

Pichushkin laughed, though there was no trace of humour in his face as he slowly drew the gun out, tapping it against his hand before he shrugged and levelled it at Silva’s head.

“Suppose you could call this a suicide,” he said, and Silva gave a grin that was more snarl than anything else. 

“Before you pull that trigger, remember that even suicide isn’t foolproof,” he said, and Pichushkin raised an eyebrow, looking as though he were considering trying to work out exactly what Silva meant. He decided against it, and the gun gave an ominous click as he readied it. 

The second where Silva knew Pichushkin had to pull the trigger passed without a gunshot, but with a sudden and sickening crack from behind them. Silva froze, the sound briefly too loud, too unexpected, and then he realised that there were gunshots now, none of them directed at him. He considered turning around, but before he could he became aware of another shot, one that was much closer to him; a split second later he felt the pain as the bullet slammed into his shoulder, knocking him flat onto his back, his legs twisted awkwardly under him. He barely had time to register the pain before Pichushkin was on him, the gun seemingly forgotten now; he drove a knee into Silva’s chest and pinned him in place, one of his hands gripping Silva by the hair and tugging his head to the side, the other curling into a fist and colliding right with the side of his neck, briefly making it impossible to breathe.

“Tell me what the _fuck_ you’re doing!” Pichushkin demanded, shouting to be heard over whatever else was going on behind them. Silva stayed quiet, twisting and trying to pull one of his knees up for leverage. Pichushkin dug his fingers into Silva’s injured shoulder, the nails burrowing through the damaged clothing and gouging at the wound. Silva barely bit back a scream, but the pain was white hot and impossible to keep off his face. “Tell me!” 

Silva forced the pain away from a scream and into hysterical laughter instead. Pichushkin dig his fingers in enough that the laughter was cut off as Silva had to gasp for hair; he felt oddly giddy when he managed to catch a breath.

“You’ll have to do more than that,” he said, smiling in such a way that he was sure all his teeth were bared. Pichushkin only dug his fingers in deeper. The pain was almost blinding and Silva did everything he could to push it to back of his mind, tune it out just like he had grown so accustomed to doing, but it was difficult to concentrate when he was pinned to the ground with a knee in his chest, the combination of pain and pressure claustrophobic. Panic buzzed at the edge of his thoughts and Silva knew he had limited time before it would take over completely. 

“Come on,” he snarled, breathless. “Why don’t you show me what you can do? Why don’t you hurt me properly, give me something to scream about? You can’t! You can’t do it, you don’t have the balls, you weak, disgusting—”

Pichushkin’s fist collided with Silva’s jaw and silenced him for only a second; tasting blood, Silva spat, laughing.

“Is that it? Just going to hit me, of course you are, you don’t have the imagination for anything else—”

The next punch was harder, to the side of Silva’s head, sending sparks scattering over his vision as though everything left from the taser had been shaken loose. Silva felt himself trembling, suddenly far too warm, and he laughed again. 

“Why don’t you drag me off somewhere, just you and me, maybe I could tell you how to do this properly? Pathetic!”

He continued laughing, finding himself unable to stop until in one swift movement Pichushkin stood, his feet either side of him, and pulled the taser from his pocket again. Silva had a brief moment to register it before Pichushkin leaned down and pressed it right to Silva’s injured shoulder. 

The pain was excruciating, a kind of sickening pain that he hadn’t felt for years. It pushed all of the air out of him and sent his thoughts exploding into nothing, leaving him alone with the pain in a way he hoped to never be again. There was nothing else – he couldn’t see, he couldn’t hear, he could only feel, the pain growing until he thought he would surely die from it because no one could survive pain like this.

Except he didn’t even have that small comfort. He knew it was all too possible to live; if he tried to comfort himself with thoughts of death, he would be lying to himself. There was nothing else but the pain now – nothing else was promised to him.

When the pain began to recede, it did so slowly, going from being completely consuming to a persistent ache that came in pulses, some worse than others. It allowed some of Silva’s other senses to return to him; he realised he was sitting up and someone was tugging at him, and he briefly tried to twist away before the pain grew again, freezing him for long enough that he realised they were tugging at the restraints at his wrists. He relaxed, slackening the rope, and a second later he felt the rope loosen and then fall away. His arms slumped down, sending more pain flooding through his shoulder.

He could hear voices, talking quickly both at him and to one another, but he couldn’t make sense of them fast enough to answer.

“Raoul? Come on, we need to—Jesus Christ, is he still in there?”

“Fuck off, you probably wouldn’t be in good shape either if someone had just tased you in your fucking gunshot wound. He must have had it there for near a fucking minute. He shouldn’t be alive.”

“Well, that’s never stopped him before. _Raoul_! Can you hear me?”

“You don’t think it’s like, shorted out his brain or something?” 

Silva recognised Ackroyd’s voice joining the other two; it was Collins who snapped a reply.

“Fuck off, he’s a person, not a fucking robot. It doesn’t work like that.”

Movement around him, and then Silva could make Collins out, crouching in front of him. He was sporting a black eye and a bloody nose; one of his wrists still had rope tied around it, the other raw and bloody from twisting free. Silva felt a vague sense of pride. Of course it had been Collins. He’d always been good at getting out of restraints. Too good, if he were honest. 

“Can you hear me?” he asked, and the words made sense quickly now. In the same second, Silva realised why – Collins was speaking Portuguese. 

“Where are they?” he asked, and Collins glanced around before looking back.

“Most of them are dead,” he said. “Sorry… I didn’t really have a choice until I could untie some of the others. Pichushkin was distracted with you, though. We got him, and a few of the others that were hanging around outside. You can deal with them later.”

“You took a huge risk,” Silva said, his tongue feeling slightly too big for his mouth. His jaw ached when he spoke. Something flashed quickly across Collins’s face – fear and guilt simultaneously – and then settled out of view.

“I know,” he said, his voice quieter now. “But he was going to shoot you. Even if it hadn’t worked, I could have distracted him.”

“He did shoot me,” Silva said, and oddly he laughed again. Collins and Ackroyd exchanged glances, but said nothing about it.

“Not in the head,” Collins told him. “That’s what matters right now. He was going to kill you.”

“We need to move.” Davis had returned, wiping his bloody hands on his jeans. “How is he?”

“I’m fine,” Silva said, but he could hear how raspy his voice was, and when he stumbled to his feet Collins had to grab him to steady him. “It’s just the electricity. It will fade.”

“Do we have others coming?” Ackroyd asked. “Or was that whole thing about ambushing Pichushkin’s guys a fluke?”

“Mostly a fluke,” Silva said, testing to see if he could walk reasonably. He was severely unsteady on his feet and would be at a disadvantage if their escape was interrupted, but he hoped it wouldn’t come to that. “But the best flukes are always rooted in truth.”

“Do we have more people to worry about?” Davis asked. 

“Highly likely,” Silva said. “Though if they haven’t arrived by now, I assume they were intercepted.”

“You really do plan for everything, don’t you?” Davis said, raising an eyebrow, and Silva laughed again, the sound still seeming off. 

“Not everything,” he said, feeling his shoulder throbbing as though to remind him. “Not everything. I suppose it’s impossible to plan for _everything_ but still…”

He trailed off, his mind on the pain in his shoulder. It was a constant thing, a cross between an ache and a burn, impossible to tune out. He felt on edge, his whole body wired as though it would start shaking at any moment, and he tried to tell himself it was the aftereffects of the taser but he couldn’t fully commit to the lie. 

“Where’s Pichushkin?” he asked, forcing his mind to focus on more solid things.

“Some of the others are keeping an eye on him,” Davis said. “He won’t be any trouble for now. Collins did quite a number on him.”

“He won’t die?” Silva asked, addressing the question to Collins, who looked down at his feet, shaking his head.

“No. I stopped before I did anything too damaging. I thought you would want to finish the job.”

Silva nodded, but didn’t elaborate. He felt about as steady on his feet as he was going to get, and he cautiously made his way over to where most of the bodies lay. Two of them, he noticed, had their necks snapped. He nudged them with his feet until he spotted what he was looking for; crouching down with some difficulty, he picked up his weapon and phone from the dead man’s pocket. 

“Take a look around and gather any weapons you can find,” he said, straightening up with some difficulty. “I need to speak to the others.”

Davis nodded, watching worriedly as Silva made his way across the warehouse and towards the side door. Glancing at Ackroyd and Collins, he knew he wasn’t the only one worried about whether or not Silva was going to remain upright.

“He’s gonna lose it, isn’t he?” Ackroyd eventually asked, going over to the closest body and pushing the man over onto his back with his foot.

“I don’t imagine he’ll be happy,” Davis said.

“Nah, you know what I mean,” Ackroyd said, picking up the dead man’s weapon and checking to see how many rounds were left. “He’s got that look about him.”

“He was just tased pretty fucking badly,” Collins pointed out. “That would be enough to shake anyone a little loose.”

“You both know what I mean,” Ackroyd said, rolling his eyes. 

“Can you blame him?” Davis asked. “Would you fare any better?”

“I’m not attacking him, jeez,” Ackroyd said, clicking the safety on the gun and putting it in his pocket. “I’m just saying we should keep an eye out. You know how he can get sometimes. Like he doesn’t know where he is. He’s kind of like that now. Don’t you ever think it seems that way?”

“Seems what way?” Collins asked.

“You know, like he thinks he’s somewhere else. He sort of wanders around and he’s got this look about him, like he’s surprised to see completely ordinary things. Where do you think he thinks he is?”

“I wonder,” Davis said grimly.

“You always have those cryptic answers, but you never actually tell us anything.”

“Maybe if you’re so curious, you should ask him yourself?” Davis asked, staring at him, and Ackroyd stared back silently. “If not, maybe you should recognise it’s none of your business.”

“You do know what’s up though,” Ackroyd said, moving over to the next body. 

“Of course I do,” Davis snapped. “I’ve known him for years. I’m sure it’s pretty obvious what’s going on – or it should be, to anyone with a bloody brain cell.”

“Yeah, I know that,” Ackroyd said. “He’s fucked up. I just wanna know what could fuck someone like him up that much.”

They were interrupted at that point by a shout from the door – Gordon, checking on how they were doing and telling them to hurry up. The three of them focused on gathering up the weapons and anything else they could find that might be useful; as they were finishing up, Silva reappeared, carrying with him two large containers that smelled strongly of petrol. 

“Told you,” Ackroyd murmured quietly, and Davis shot him a warning glare. 

Despite themselves, they hovered in the doorway, watching as Silva meticulously coated the bodies with the contents of one container, and then liberally shook the other one out over the floor and the nearby walls surrounding them. It was a mostly empty warehouse, but Davis knew that Silva had taken into account what made up the structure itself – mostly flammable plastics and metal that would buckle if the fire grew hot enough. Silva didn’t say a word as he shook the petrol out and threw the empty container to the ground, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a small lighter.

“Is he not even going to move?” Gordon asked quietly, and Ackroyd snorted.

“Nah. He’s a fucking nutter.”

He tried to say the words lightly, but Davis could hear the note of concern in it; could see the concern written all over Collins’s face. They all knew better than to interrupt. The flash of flame from the lighter was brief, and for a moment there was nothing until the floor around Silva erupted in flame. He stood there, quite still, and Davis and Collins exchanged glances.

“Think we should go get him?” Collins asked, and Davis shook his head, looking back over.

“Give him a moment. You know how he gets.”

Silva continued to stare at the flames, watching as they spread to the bodies and took hold of the clothing, the crackle growing louder as the fire spread across the floor and towards the walls. He estimated he had around forty seconds before the whole place was an inferno. Flames licked at his boots and he could feel the heat through them; he could feel his skin prickling, the heat rising quickly, his gunshot wound stinging as he began to sweat. He watched the flames at his feet and, strangely, had the urge to simply lie down in them.

A hand suddenly grabbed his upper arm and he jumped, ripping it from him and gripping the wrist tightly as he spun around to see who it was. It took a moment for him to recognise Davis; when he did, he let go of his wrist as though that was what was burning him, his heart thudding in his chest.

“Come on,” Davis said, and Silva didn’t trust himself to do anything else other than let Davis lead him towards the door.

The air was cool on his face and snapped him mostly back to his senses. There was still a fuzziness in the back of his mind, a sense that something wasn’t quite right, but he tried to force it back the more the air got through to him, realising his hands and face itched with the beginnings of burns. Behind them, the roar of the fire had grown loud enough that they had to step away from the building to be heard; inside, Silva could already hear the roof beginning to creak in protest. Smoke billowed out of all the gaps in the walls, pushing its way out through the roof, and he watched it silently.

“Raoul.”

It took Davis nearly a minute to get his attention – he didn’t dare try and touch him again. He could feel the others staring at them nervously, and he found himself hoping Silva would keep it together until they were at least on their way out of there.

Silva’s eyes didn’t quite focus on Davis as he looked at him. “Hmm?”

“The others,” Davis said. “You said you were going to speak to them. Are they on their way?”

“Yes,” Silva said distantly, his eyes flickering back to the dark smoke now filling the otherwise clear sky. “I suppose they have a signal now.”

He laughed, still staring up at the warehouse, flames now beginning to lick out from the roof after the smoke. Davis stared at him for a moment, and then turned back to the others.

“Gordon, get everyone else out of here. Collins, help me with him.”

There was a heaviness in the air as the others left. Silva didn’t seem to notice.


End file.
